Chapter 24 - Destroying The Laptop

Rory's grey eyes flashed with exasperation as she observed the frozen screen in front of her.

The green characters on it flickered in the black background as the system tried to regain its footing. However, the 2014 model seemed to lack to ability to regain itself.

The generic computer was extremely low quality and had been with the original host for years. It's black cover was filled with mysterious scrapes and dents, exposing its overused past.

However, other than an uncanny amount yaoi novels downloaded on it, the ŀȧptop had nothing useful, therefore Rory erased it before modifying it by increasing its security and overall remaking how it runs the best she can.

Unfortunately, it was clear that she wasn't able to modify it enough.

A wrinkle appeared between her delicate eyebrows and an imaginary clock formed inside of her head.

When it came to lag, there was nothing she could do other than restart the computer or wait it out. Only in those two options would the computer come out intact. When both failed she only had the option of destroying the ŀȧptop.

If she chose to restart, she would be able to get over the lag quicker, however the risk reached the level of absolute hell fire.

Her computer would go into dark mode and all of the walls she put up to protect her location would drop for a few moments until the computer cut back on.

With the newer models of technology, 2010+, the system never truly cut off unless the battery was taken out for more than a hour, therefore it's connection was always going.

If the system was even a second slow to turn on; Cloud would know her exact location.

Putting her mindset in the place of Cloud's, she could guess that she had a 40% chance of being killed, a 50% chance of being recruited under threat, and a 10% chance of being tortured until death.

All of which she would rather avoid.

On the other hand, if she chose to wait it out, they could possibly still find her location by breaking her walls while they were undefended.

However, that possibility all leaned on if Knox chose to stop fixing the security wall's and focused on her.

Rory didn't have enough interactions with Knox to predict his choice, however with business choices she chose to be a pessimist.

Based on his skill, only he should be able to tackle her ŀȧptop's lower grade walls while she was not defending.

Rory sighed and used one of her hands to ruffle her now loose hanging brown hair.

She had placed herself in a terrible situation, however she had no regrets. Messing around with Knox was too addicting.

He was the first person to survive under her full onslaught and it was a welcome change that she never experienced in her last life.

She had planned to just play with him for a little more before leaving.

After all, while she did have the capabilities to obliterate their system, she knew that her computer wouldn't be able to keep up with her.

Also, the information she needed was taken after the third wall. She already had it on USB.

However, she never expected her current ŀȧptop to start having lag issues so soon.

A bitter smile appeared on her face.

No it wasn't that she didn't expect it, she had just stretched out her expectations a little too far.

Addicting stimulations were truly the death of everyone.

The count down inside of her head hit the three minutes left marker from the original 5 minutes it had at first.

The frozen screen still refused to start working again and only continued to flicker.

Internally, she decided to wait until 10 seconds were left before she broke the ŀȧptop. Only at that point would she lose the ability to block the signal in time to stop her location from being leaked.

Rory got up from her chair and stretched out in a lazy manner to feel a few of her bones crack before looking over at her night stand curiously.

The time of her alarm clock read, 4:34 am.

She froze for a moment before her pink lips twitched guiltily. After so much time passed she was still patiently waiting for her computer to unfreeze so she could play some more.

Maybe she over indulged enough for today.

Rory took her time to sit back down in her hard wood chair with a thoughtful expression.

The money should be transferred to her flatcoin account seconds afterwards.

Flatcoin was an untraceable network of electronic currency that could be used anywhere. Therefore, she would be able to have parts for a new computer shipped shortly afterwards through drone.

It was best to end her fun here.

With this in mind, Rory changed her mind about waiting until the last few seconds before killing the computer.

She decisively made a decision at 30 seconds left and reached into the drawer of her desk to take out a pair of scissors. Then proceeded to pry off the plastic bottom cover of her ŀȧptop revealing the large amount of cords underneath.

The bulky ŀȧptop contained a multitude of unnecessary hardware, therefore dismantling it normally took around 10 minutes.

However, as if it was a reflex, Rory dismantled the computer in 5 seconds to expose the motherboard in the middle of all of the hardware.

She ripped the plastic object from the cords connecting it to the ŀȧptop and easily broke it in half to make sure that no kind of connection still leaked out of it.

'Until next time Knox.'